


Written in the Stars

by vatrixsta



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Enterprise fic, F/M, Gen, Star Trek: TNG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 06:26:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15261384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vatrixsta/pseuds/vatrixsta
Summary: "I believe that when we leave a place, part of it goes with us and part of us remains. Long after we are gone, our voices will linger in these walls for as long as this place remains."





	Written in the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akscully](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akscully/gifts).



> The quote is from Babylon 5, my other favorite sci-fi show about being in space. This story is written for my beloved akscully, who loves Picard/Crusher and shares my undying devotion to TNG.

Even reconstructed and entombed on land, the walls of their ship told stories of the stars.

Beverly entered the Captain’s quarters—and no matter what ship he served on now, he would always be the Captain of _their_ Enterprise to her—marveling at how meticulously each detail had been recreated. She swore she could smell a hot cup of Earl Grey, fresh out of the replicator.

They’d gotten the notice months ago. It wasn’t permission, per se, but Starfleet was requesting their presence for the unveiling. The museum would be located at the Academy, because it was supposed to be more than a monument; it was meant to be an educational experience. The saucer section was completely restored, using historical holo data to perfectly replicate every panel, right down to the ugly beige carpet on the floor. Their personal effects were just as carefully recreated, and she was not as eager as Troi had been to revisit her old quarters. Beverly preferred keeping whatever embarrassing novel she’d been reading twenty years ago exactly where it belonged: in the past.

Starfleet’s decision to allow cadets a detailed walk through history was initially met with curiosity. Why not Kirk’s Enterprise, or even some of the first starships that were launched a few decades after the Vulcans made first contact? What was so special about their ship? She supposed that while not as impressive as her present-day contemporaries, their ship had been revolutionary the day she was launched into the galaxy, but then, so had so many others. Beverly remembered how her friends had colleagues had reacted with jealousy when she told them she had been assigned to the new Enterprise. It had been a prestigious position even then, but as they had made a name for themselves, as their time together on board became a thing of legend, an appointment on the Enterprise became more -- a dream for the kids back at the Academy.

Legends were powerful things. Beverly was sure their legend was the real reason Starfleet had chosen them for their living history lesson.

The NCC-1701-D had been special, but not because of the parts it had been made of. As cliché as it sounded, it was special because of the people who had served on it. God but this ship had changed the course of her life, of all their lives. She thought of Wesley, as she often did, and said a prayer that he was well. His visits had been more regular in the beginning, but as time wore on, she worried that he got too lost on other plains of existence to remember he had a family that still missed him. But her oldest son was doing something meaningful, something he was happy and fulfilled doing, which was all a mother could truly hope for her child.

All the greatest loves of her life were connected to this ship, this ship that had crashed head first into the earth but still managed to keep them safe, to keep them together. Even Jack, though he’d died long before the Enterprise had been commissioned, had always lived and breathed between them, longer than they should have let him. She had forged the kind of deep friendship bonds that normally only occurred between siblings or other close family members, with her crew. She would not have known any of them without the Enterprise, and without them, the Enterprise would have been hollow, bits of machinery churning through space, a marvel, but nothing they would have built a museum for.

She hadn’t met Jean Luc because of this ship, of course, but it was this ship that had allowed her to know him, to love him, to lose him, to find him again. For each of them, the Enterprise had been an adventure, but moreover, it had allowed them to find a closeness Beverly knew from experience was not entirely common on a starship. Camaraderie was expected, of course, but more often than not officers serving together forged close bonds that lasted only as long as their time serving together. How different her experience was to that. Riker and Troi were godparents to her youngest son. Each of them was a cherished member of her family, her poker buddies, her playmates, her partners in crime, savers and discoverers of new worlds so far from the small Earth moon community she’d been born to before she’d answered her calling in Starfleet.

The door opened with the same snick—they had even gotten the sound right, the sound that differed from ship to ship for reasons she was sure Geordi LaForge could probably explain to her.

“There you are,” he said softly, a familiar hand pressing just so against her back. “We thought perhaps we’d lost you.”

“You couldn’t. Not here,” she assured him. He was still handsome—he’d always been handsome, of course, but something about each year that added to his age only made him more distinguished, made him more dear to her. A young Jean Luc Picard had been her husband’s friend, had been the man who had brought Jack’s body home to her; this man, older, yes, was a man who’d served by her side for two decades, who’d forged a bond of trust and love so strong it could span entire star systems—this man was her husband. “We were such fools back then, Jean Luc.”

He smiled that little grin that was only for her and took her hand. “And just what were we foolish about?”

She thought about all the time they had spent telling themselves it wouldn’t work, with them serving on the same ship—only to realize they actually worked better than ever once they finally stopped fighting against it. She thought about the self-imposed distance Jean Luc had put between himself and the rest of them, letting her in more often, but still holding something back out of a misplaced sense of duty, of responsibility to them. It didn’t stop his heart from loving them fiercely, more than a captain should, and it didn’t stop them from loving him back. It had only kept them from each other.

Did it really matter now, though? This place had once been their home, and now it would stand for centuries, even after they were all part of the stars, a living, breathing testament to their journeys, a tool future generations of explorers would use to boldly go.

“We should have held onto it tighter when we had the chance,” she said quietly.

“Oh, my love,” Jean Luc said quietly, “all things end, no matter how tightly we hold onto them. Losing something doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth having when it was yours.”

“Stop being so wise, it annoys me,” she teased, shaking herself out of the past.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised, and they pressed their foreheads together gently, hands clasped between them the way they had never allowed themselves in this room. He hadn’t been her husband here, he had been her captain, and she loved both versions of him more fiercely than she could say. Now was better for who they were today; then had been better for who they needed to be at the time. It could be as simple as that.

“Have you lost our boy?” Beverly asked.

“He’s badgering Will with questions in Ten Forward,” Jean Luc sighed. “He wants to take a vacation to the Titan.”

“A vacation away from one starship to another starship?” Beverly grinned. “He’s your son.”

“Then you’d think he’d show an interest in music or literature,” Jean Luc grumbled. “Instead it’s all science and medical textbooks.” He gave her a betrayed look that seemed to say it was all her fault.

“Give him another couple of years and he’ll be begging you to teach him how to grow grapes and make wine,” Beverly promised. “Until then, there are worse fates for your child than growing up to be a Starfleet doctor.”

“Nothing would make me prouder,” he assured her. He gave a longing glance at the replicator. “Do you suppose—”

“They aren’t functional,” she told him.

“Pity,” he remarked. “The newer replicators never get the temperature exactly right…”

Beverly couldn’t help but smile as they made their way back to the others. Yes, there were things they would always miss, would always recall with fondness and even frustration. Longing for pieces of the past didn’t mean your present was unsatisfying, just as looking forward to the future didn’t mean you couldn’t appreciate what came before. What they had built together in the stars would endure here on Earth for a hundred million tomorrows yet to be. And their lives would always be the better for the time this Enterprise had been their home.

~~~

END 


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